Resumes

If you think employers or job recruiters are going to read your resume word for word, you’re wrong. The people reviewing your resumé are skimming at best.  Eye tracking studies show that employers only spend 5-7 seconds on a resume (HRDive).  Those same studies show that resumes are read in a F-shape, whereby employers skim the top one-third or so of the resume (the first horizontal bar of the F-shape), which is known as the Visual Center, then skim down the left-hand side of the first page and, if you’re lucky, the second page (the vertical bar of the F-shape). …

Studies show that 525 resumes are received for every open position but only 1 person will get hired into this position. PhDs chase one lead at a time via the outdated process of uploading their resume to a job site, when the process does not move forward, having to start all over again. Most PhDs never make it out of academia for long because they do not have the stomach for a high level job search. But You can be different. By leaning into the challenging, or tortuous parts of your job search, instead of avoiding them, you can save…

Want to increase your eligibility for the top PhD jobs? Consider our Data Scientist Career Program. You’ll get everything you need to start your career. We have seen so many PhDs without industry experience and without data science experience getting hired into Data Scientist roles, while seeing many more fail to get hired into this career track simply for being invisible to employers, that we decided to create an Advanced Program dedicated to this career path. Our Data Scientist Advanced Program ensures that your resumé, LinkedIn profile, and interview answers appeal to top-paying industry employers. The Program will also ensure…

Here is the funny thing that most PhDs don’t understand - your PhD is incredibly valuable and so are you, BUT you are not above the job search process. You and your PhD don’t give you a free pass to not have to learn to speak the language of industry, to not have to follow up, to not have to learn industry buzzwords and transferable skills; to not have to practice behavioral questions, on and on. Being smart, proven, or successful in one area does not make you any of those things in another area. Get over yourself. Otherwise, you…

Too many PhDs, are so brainwashed into thinking that their PI is some kind of omnipresent and omnipotent force in their career, that they will do whatever it takes to keep them happy, even going as far as working for free after they run out of funding. PhDs need to shake off this mindset and deprioritize their PI and their academic career if they would ever be able to transition into academia. Academic letters of recommendation, even from the most prestigious PI, are worthless in industry.

It’s essential to know beforehand what could potentially drain your energy in a job search. Knowing thy enemy ahead gives you a heads up on the war plan. Once you face a hurdle, your brain automatically looks for —an alternative— something else to do. Your brain will come up with several excuses trying to mold you away from that step. Discouragement, anger, gloom, self-pity are a few emotions that you might experience when faced with an obstacle. These emotions could dissuade you from attempting to overcome the obstacle. Redirect your emotions positively, avoid the stress and focus on the job…

The first interview I did with a recruiter from industry regarding PhD resume was extremely eye-opening. A recruiter told me that they typically receive 3000 resumes a month. She said that:  Humans’ eyes don’t see the first round of submissions; they are filtered through the ATS. Applicants have to make sure that their resumes are specifically written per the job description with all the relevant keywords. This will cause them to be reviewed by human eyes as opposed to the computer.  Typically, there is a recruiter who is assigned to a particular area and after he finds potential candidate/s he…

My job search strategy felt inadequate, it was a painful experience. I was perplexed. My frustration knew no bounds, self pity and doubt shrouded me. I could not understand where I was going wrong. I spent days fixing my resume. Then, applied for one job at a time and waited to hear back from hiring managers and recruiters for 2 weeks before starting with the next job application. I applied for every single job that came my way. The wait was painful, it was excruciating to bear the silence from the other end.  Every moment I questioned myself; why would such…

What is a PhD supposed to do when you send hundreds of resumes out and get nothing back but a few automated responses? This is the question I was trying to answer in my last year of graduate school. I literally sent out hundreds of resumes. I posted my resume to Monster and other resume aggregation sites and waited for the tidal wave of industry PhD job offers to roll in. Of course, this didn’t happen. I polished up a generic resume and uploaded it to dozens of industry job websites. I remember getting on Pfizer and Shire’s websites, clicking…

The holidays were not so happy for my family as my husband was about to be laid off by his employer due to funding restraints at the lab. Employers hire but they truly do not care. We had finally come to realize that academia does not look after people. Even after dedicating our time and effort to writing grants, publishing papers, and tirelessly working for hours in the lab, we were expendable.  This was a wake-up call; the plight of a postdoc in academia. We started sending our resumes to every company in January with the hope of a miracle. Endless…

It took about a month for that fact to finally sink in. I was a PhD, no longer a PhD student. I was part of the 2% of society that now possessed that degree of education. But I had no idea how to write a resume.  After you get your PhD, all you hear about is getting a job, making a decent salary, and finally enjoying life.  This was not true for me. I was in some post-PhD fog, a depression unlike what I faced during my PhD. There were of course dark times in the lab, at the computer, redoing…

I couldn’t believe it.  After nearly 25 years of being a “student,” I had done it.  I had earned the right to put 3 letters at the end of my name: P-h-D.  After those 25 years, I felt it was time to leave academia behind, I no longer wanted to be on a college campus anymore, with undergrads, and lifetime academics.  I wanted something more. This was not for me.  So I brushed off my CV which I had used for so many grant proposals, changed a few things here and there, and started posting my ‘resume’ on every job…